Newspapers have figured out that they need web content, and they're desperate for it. So they take reporters and repurpose them as bloggers. Makes sense, right? Not really. As it turns out, blogging isn't the same thing as reporting, and many of these reporters are bad and out-of-touch bloggers. Case in point? As Jossip mentioned earlier, Elizabeth Snead of the L.A. Times. Today, she points out the lovely Liv Tyler's "bit of bulk" during a premier: "Suck that tummy in, girls!" Bloggers and reporters are two separate species, and they must be kept apart! That's not to say that a hybrid can't be bred successfully, but we must remain vigilant against journalistic miscegenation.

And then Modern Art Notes points out that we have Linda Yablonsky blogging for the New York Times at Art Basel:

As the world's premier art fair, Art Basel is also the art world's premier social opportunity. To join the interspecies assortment of art collectors, art dealers and artists who gather here each June to witness the endlessly renewable marriage of art and money is to be swept up in cultural consumption so compulsive it feels something like having sex with everyone you ever wanted to know — exhausting and exhilarating.

Linda, please don't make us imagine you having sex with "everyone you ever wanted to know."

It's hard to put a finger on what separates a mediocre blogger from a good one. That said, blogging is a lot more instinctive and off-the-cuff than writing and reporting and article. Sometimes, the crossover is like trying to turn a Method actor into a improv comic.

[Image: Cox and Forkum]